EMPULSE: Fast Feet, Bare Bones, and a Lot of Hope
Let’s get one thing straight right out of the gate: if you’ve been wandering the wasteland since Respawn abandoned Titanfall 2, EMPULSE is going to smell like water in a dry desert. The wall-running, the grapples, the sheer, reckless momentum – it’s all here, and it feels good. I’d go so far as to say it’s the first game in years that actually understands what made that movement tick. Slide-hopping, bunny-hopping, chaining a wall-run into a grapple swing into a mid-air kill… when it clicks, it clicks like a well-oiled rifle bolt. You can practically feel the Source engine DNA in the muscle memory. It’s sublime.
But here’s the thing about a desert: sometimes that water is brackish. EMPULSE arrives in Early Access with a rock-solid foundation and more than a few cracks in the plaster. It’s a game caught between being a heartfelt tribute and a cautious, checkbox-filling product from a studio with a complicated history. The consensus from the player front is clear: the core is excellent, but the house needs a lot of work before it’s a home.
The Movement is the Star
Nearly every positive review echoes the same sentiment: the movement is fantastic. The toolkit – wall-running, grappling hooks, Holojumps, and those wonderfully named P.A.I.N.T. bombs – creates a flow state that’s addictive. You’re not just traversing a map; you’re composing a kinetic poem. Grapple into a wall-run, slide off, hit a Speed Paint pad, launch into the air, and land a headshot on some poor soul who thought they could camp a corner. It’s responsive, it’s fast, and it rewards experimentation. The developers, 1047 Games, have already shown a willingness to listen, walking back an early speed nerf based on community outcry. That’s the kind of responsiveness Early Access is supposed to be about.
Where the Paint Starts to Peel
But for every player who feels at home, there’s another pointing at the exposed wiring. The most persistent complaint? Aim assist. This is the great spectre haunting every modern competitive shooter, and EMPULSE has it bad. A significant portion of the player base feels that controller aim assist provides an unfair advantage, especially in close-quarters, high-speed engagements where a mouse-and-keyboard player has to be pixel-perfect while a controller gets software assistance. The devs have tweaked it, but the controversy is far from settled. Some players argue it outright breaks the competitive integrity of the game, while others on the other side of the input divide say it’s a non-issue. I fall somewhere in the weary middle – I’ve seen it feel oppressive, and I’ve seen skilled MnK players dominate anyway. It’s a problem, but not an unmanageable one. Yet.
The Mech Problem
Then there are the mechs. Oh, the mechs. The developers clearly want them to be the other big draw, the power spike that turns the tide. In practice, they feel… bolted on. They’re not Titans. They lack the personality, the customization, and the sheer awe-inspiring presence. They’re clunky bipedal tanks that spawn on a timer, get piloted for a minute, and are then melted by a coordinated team of hammer-wielding pilots. Many players simply ignore them. The maps, designed for nimble 6v6 movement, often feel too tight for mechs to have any real breathing room, turning mech-on-mech combat into a brawl in a phone booth. It’s the weakest link in the chain, and a clear area where the game needs to either commit fully or cut loose.
A Barren Landscape
Let’s talk about content. For a game launching at $20, the package is thin. Five maps, a handful of weapons (including only one shotgun and one sniper), and a progression system that feels like a grind. Unlocking a new weapon takes hours, and the drip-feed of cosmetic boxes feels like a battle pass waiting to happen. The developers promise no microtransactions at launch, and that’s commendable, but the skeleton of a monetization system is already visible under the skin. The lore is a single sentence scribbled on a bar napkin. “Post-utopian streets of Freehold.” That’s about all you get. For a fantasy literature lover like me, that’s a crime. Where’s the history? The factions? The reason I’m painting walls and piloting mechs beyond “it’s fun”? I’ve read more compelling worldbuilding in a Dungeons & Dragons adventure module printed in 1992.
The menu is clunky, round start timers are bafflingly long, and the matchmaking can be slow. The game runs like a dream, I’ll give it that. 120 fps on a mid-range rig is a blessing. But performance is table stakes, not a selling point.
The Specter of Splitgate
A shadow hangs over this whole endeavor. 1047 Games’ track record is… complicated. They made Splitgate, a genuinely fun portal-based arena shooter that they ultimately struggled to sustain, leaving the player base feeling abandoned. The fear that EMPULSE will follow the same path – a flash in the pan, then a slow decay into server silence – is real. The proof will be in the updates. Right now, they’re communicating well and acting on feedback. That’s good. But trust is earned over years, not through a single Early Access update. The community is watching.
Who Is This For?
If you are a movement shooter purist, someone who lives for the zip of a grapple hook and the slide of a clean wall-run, you will find moments of pure, unadulterated joy in EMPULSE. It scratches an itch that only a handful of games have ever reached. The objective-based modes like Upload and Intel offer smart alternatives to plain deathmatch, rewarding players who can move more than they can shoot.
If you are a casual player looking for a polished, complete experience? Stay away for now. This is Early Access in the truest sense. The skill gap is brutal. Veterans will tear you apart, the meta is already dominated by a single DMR, and the lack of content will leave you feeling like you’ve seen everything after a weekend. This is a game that demands you learn its language, and it will punish you until you do.
The Verdict
EMPULSE is a bundle of contradictions. It has some of the best movement I’ve felt in a decade, wrapped in a package that feels a decade old in terms of content. The developers are listening, but they have a mountain to climb. It’s a great time for a few hours of chaotic fun, but I have my doubts about its long-term survival. Right now, it’s a very talented athlete who hasn’t gone to the gym in a while. The potential is there. The execution needs to catch up.
Buy it if you need your Titanfall fix and can stomach the growing pains. Watch it if you want a finished product. I’m going to keep playing, because the movement is that good. But I’m not going to get attached. I’ve been burned by this studio before.
~ Gregor Vane